Jaguars dip into college ranks to fill out staff

Head coach Gus Bradley has put the finishing touches on his staff for his first year leading the Jaguars.

The team announced four hires on Thursday, all of which come from the college ranks. That continues a trend in Jacksonville, which had previously hired five assistants from the collegiate ranks.

Those earlier hires helped pave the way for some of the new arrivals. Running backs coach Terry Richardson worked with new offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch at the University of Miami while assistant defensive backs coach Mike Rutenberg was a member of DeWayne Walker’s staff at New Mexico State. Walker left his head coaching job at the school to become the Jaguars’ defensive backs coach.

The Jags also announced the previously reported hiring of tight ends coach Ron Middleton as well as the addition of assistant special teams coach Matthew Smiley. Middleton previously worked at Duke while Smiley was on the staff at Charleston Southern before getting the call to the professional ranks.

“assistant defensive backs coach Mike Rutenberg was a member of DeWayne Walker’s staff at New Mexico. Walker left his head coaching job at the school to become the Jaguars’ defensive backs coach.”
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Actually, Walker was the head coach at New Mexico STATE, not the University of New Mexico.

UNM suffered for a few years under the awful Mike Locksley, but is currently being coached by Bob Davie, who is turning the program around very rapidly.

krank00 says:Feb 8, 2013 10:48 AM

I have no problem with the pros going to the college ranks for assistance but you would think that they would need to have more than Duke, New Mexico State, Charleston Southern or Miami on their resume.

Let’s hope these college coaches don’t hit their own rookie wall. I was pretty excited to see the Seattle coaches follow Gus. That was a good sign. I guess this is how it works, though. You find a coach in college you trust and he brings along an assistant and so forth. What are we supposed to expect, though? Gus being able to bring in a well-known offensive coordinator?

“krank00 says:
Feb 8, 2013 10:48 AM
I have no problem with the pros going to the college ranks for assistance but you would think that they would need to have more than Duke, New Mexico State, Charleston Southern or Miami on their resume.”

They do. Fisch, Walker and Middleton all have experience as NFL assistants.

Let’s see the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville hiring a lot of coaches from the college ranks. I think they are on to something, after all who would question these too franchises. The bad thing for Jacksonville is the Bills already got all of the good coaches from Syracuse so there wasn’t much left after that.